


In A Quiet Place

by Styre



Category: Lost in Space (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, I headcanon that both of them survived, There’s not enough Ben Adler content here, have some bittersweet afterlife fic anyway, season 2 finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22233082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Styre/pseuds/Styre
Summary: Two casualties of the season two finale meet in a desert
Relationships: Ben Adler & Scarecrow
Comments: 17
Kudos: 43





	In A Quiet Place

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sappiest thing I’ve ever written, and the only reason I’m posting is that my outrage at the lack of Ben Adler content outweighs my shame.

A man knelt at the base of the towering stone, tracing figures carved into the sun-warmed metal beneath his hands and knees. He was dark-haired, perhaps forty years of age, dressed in a loose-knitted scarf and canvas jacket a few shades darker than the endless desert that stretched around him. He seemed worn, weighted down by care or some inner burden, but his movements were peaceful, unhurried. He wore about his neck a leather cord, which swayed back and forth gently as he worked his way along the row of symbols, weighted by a copper pendant in the shape of some alien rune. It was the same design that he was tracing painstakingly, figure by figure and row by row. 

As he worked, a shadow fell across him. 

“When I said ‘next time’,” he said in a voice strange and distant with sorrow, “I didn’t mean so soon. I’d have waited, you know. As long as you needed, I’d have waited.”

He sat back on his heels and looked up at his companion, shading his eyes against the sun. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

The figure knelt down beside him, offering a three fingered hand, which the man took without any hint of fear, despite the way that the blades that tipped them gleamed in the sun like spiderwebs. It led him over to the shadowed base of the enormous stone pillar, and they sat down together, backs against the stone. 

The man stroked a hand down his companion’s plated arm, which appeared to be made of the same burnished copper metal as his pendant. 

“Beautiful,” he said, almost to himself. “I wish I could have seen you this way, just once.”

Above their heads, the sky clouded over and darkened, gathering charge. 

“It does that, here. Not just every twenty-three days, I mean; often.”

The wind picked up as the storm grew, kicking up dust until soon all that was visible was the symbol on the ground before them and the flicker of lightning in the distance as it struck pillar after pillar, gaining on their position with unnatural swiftness. 

Neither of the two made any attempt to move. The lightning struck the monolith at their backs. The man leaned forward into it, closing his eyes and tilting his head up as it poured over them like a benediction. For a moment, he was illuminated in blinding blue-white, and then the storm receded down the line of standing stones behind them. The wind died and the sky cleared just as supernaturally quickly as they’d arrived. 

All at once, he turned and clutched his companion, pressing his face into the warm segmented metal. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry. For everything, everything.” He was crying now, in a stifled, shamed way, body silently wracked with the sobs he was holding back. 

Slowly, one arm moved, then another, until all four were wrapped around him, holding him gently until at last his tears faded and subsided and the gesture of consolation turned into an embrace.

“No,” said his companion into the silence that followed. 

“No?” echoed the man, looking up at him in confusion. 

“No,” he said again, this time brushing a clawed finger along the drying tear marks as though wiping them away. “Beginning.”

“What?”

“Beginning, Ben Adler.”

“I did say that,” the man sighed, “didn’t I? That we’d do this the right way from the beginning. Are you sure you even want... you don’t need to associate with me, you know. You can go anywhere, do anything. Never see me again. Isn’t that what you want?”

The hand reached out again, this time to touch the copper pendant.

“That’s different,” said Ben. “I’m the one who messed up. But I love you, you know, even if I recognised it too late for both of us. I can’t let go of you, not ever, but you can and should let go of me. I hurt you. I—it’s not as though there’s anything preventing me from doing it again.”

“Love,” said the other. “Friends. Beginning, Ben Adler, now.”

There was a heavy pause. 

“...alright. Alright. If you’re certain, I’ll trust you. But not like before.”

“No.”

Ben sighed again, this time relaxing into the other’s grip. He went absolutely still for a long minute, then shifted and stretched, shaking dark, untidy bangs out from in front of his eyes. His companion set him down gently.

“Thank you,” he said. His voice was clearer and lighter than it had been a moment ago, the voice of a young teen. He shrugged his jacket off shoulders suddenly too narrow for it and tied it handily about his waist, then carefully removed and re-knotted the leather cord which held the other’s symbol so that it once again rested on the newly unscarred skin above his sternum.

His companion watched him, then, standing as well, held out a hand. The boy took it. 

Somewhere, in that vast amber desert, a ship waited. 

They’d find it if they needed it.


End file.
